


sisyphean

by chesswatchesclouds



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Attempted Murder, Bahamut is a big ol hairy dick basically, Blood, Character Development, Dark Thoughts, Gen, Groundhog Day, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Major Character Injury, Murder, Poor Prompto, Suicide Attempt, Suspension Of Disbelief, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-11
Updated: 2018-04-08
Packaged: 2019-01-10 18:38:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12305241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chesswatchesclouds/pseuds/chesswatchesclouds
Summary: Prompto's behaviour begs an almighty intervention, and he's forced to live the same day over and over until he figures outwhy.(inspired bybefore i fallon netflix.)





	1. fill my head with pieces

**Author's Note:**

> i like to make prom suffer.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 1.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this idea has been floating around in my head for a while- the first chapter is far from perfect but if I don't post it now, then I will rewrite forever and it will never get posted. 
> 
> the title of this chapter is taken from '[bloom](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8inJtTG_DuU),' by the paper kites. enjoy! x

He wakes to his phone alarm, blaringly declaring his love for chocobos.

Prompto is tangled in his sheets and drooling on his pillow, waking from a dreamless sleep that still, somehow, leaves him shaking as he blearily comes to. He blinks the sleep from his eyes and wipes his mouth and chin, cringing at the wet spot on his pillow as he rises to his elbow and reaches for his phone from the nightstand. His alarm continues to sing to an empty house as Prompto hits snooze – once, twice, three times before his thumb manages to find the button.

Prompto lays in the silence, listening.

His window is open, his curtains blowing lazily in and out again. The city is quiet, awakening with the dawn; he can see the sky through the gaps in the fabric, awash with oranges and pinks and blood reds, disturbed every so often by a wave of magic in the Wall. Prompto feels like he’s seeing the sky through a pane of rippled glass at times, the magic ever-pulsing and the view of outside ever disturbed.

He rises slowly, yawning, and habitually pads across his cold room to his drawers, dressing for his morning jog.

His neighbours are waking for their day when he leaves the house, car doors slamming in the early quiet, their laughter echoing in the street and in Prompto’s ears. They’re a lovely couple who wave whenever he sees them, friendly and sweet, with an old car that sputters and smells like chipotle. Carmin, picking at a chip in the faded yellow paint on the bonnet of the car, grins when she sees him, hair braided over her shoulder.

There’s a crash from inside their house, swiftly followed by Unda shouting, “ _Shit_!”

She emerges with two pieces of wood in each hand, and an apologetic expression on her face. Prompto can’t quite tell what it’s supposed to be – he thinks the wide part in Unda’s left hand looks like a tail, the other part the body of an animal. There are wide ears on what he thinks is the head, smoothly carved, and a pointed nose looking to the sky.

Carmin’s shoulder’s slump as she rounds the car, and she’s wearing a pained expression as she takes the polished wood from her wife’s hands.

“Unda, this was a _gift_ ,” she complains.

“I _know_ that,” Unda whines, “but if we’d _moved_ it yesterday, I wouldn’t have knocked into it and busted it.” She gives Prompto a tired smile. “Morning, Prom.”

“Good morning,” he says. “Sorry about the, uh, thing.”

Carmin waves him off but says, “Thank you.”

“It was going to happen eventually,” Unda tells him. She sighs.

“Hindsight is twenty-twenty, right?” says Prompto.

“Right,” says Unda.

He leaves them after battling through awkward small talk, taking off down the street. He loses himself in the pounding of his steps on the concrete, of his regular breathing and the sweat that starts to drip to down his neck and back. He’s red-cheeked and determined, like he had been the first morning and every morning since, and he runs for miles even when he feels like he has no one to run for. He’d had a person in mind the first morning, when he’d battled anxiety and hopelessness and told himself he was going to _exercise_.

_I’ll be worthy of him_ , he used to think, but he’s lost that thought and belief now. Amongst the pounding of his feet in stuffy sunshine and cold rain, Prompto found himself running for himself, running _from_ himself.

He rounds the corner, finds himself flung right into broad-shoulders and a half-open Kingsglaive jacket. Apologies dry on his tongue as the man doesn’t stop walking; he looks vaguely annoyed at the collision, in the middle of doing up the belts and buttons on his fancy-looking coat.

“Be more careful, kid,” he throws over his shoulder, rounding the corner.

Prompto rubs the back of his neck, cowed by four words from a stranger, and makes for home.

He showers when he gets in, forgets that he finished his shampoo yesterday and has to settle instead for his hair smelling like sweet vanilla (his mother’s shampoo, for all that she’s never home to use it). He munches on an apple as he leaves for school, loathe to sit at an empty table with his breakfast, and plays King’s Knight in the other hand.

He levels up twice as he walks, and again as he wanders through the gates to the school, his attention solely on the screen in his hands – until he dies and the game crashes. When he opens it back up, Prompto discovers he’s lost all of his progress and, disheartened, pockets his phone and steps onto the road-

-and into the path of an oncoming vehicle.

The car, suave and glossy black, screeches to a halt several feet away. It’s fancier than anything Prompto has ever seen in his life, belonging to only one person he can think of, and it’s obviously no stranger to well-care. He stares wide-eyed at the exasperated man behind the wheel, bespectacled and glaring at him like he’s the newest idiot to step out in front of his car.

_How dare I_ , Prompto thinks, scurrying out of the way, _my poor scrawny body might have dented his paint job if he’d hit me_!

He puts it from his mind as he weaves through throngs of students on his way to his locker, half-hearted in his attempts to avoid collision as he rummages through his bag for his camera. It’s an old and dented and scratched thing but nevertheless Prompto’s most prized possession. It was a birthday gift from his parents on the rare occasion they’d been home to celebrate it with him, and his bedroom walls are lined with the shots he’s taken over the years; trees in the park, fish in the pond, the Citadel silhouetted against the blinding sun.

His collection is only set to grow.

Prompto is surrounded by cliques as he inputs his locker combination, surrounded by screams and shouts and squeals, by friends hugging each other like they weren’t doing the exact same thing yesterday. He tells himself he finds it silly, ridiculous even, and pretends that his heart doesn’t ache for the same attention he’s alone in the centre of. He puts his full attention towards his locker, almost clambering inside the tiny space while his loneliness creeps up on him and climbs on his shoulders.

“Annoying, huh?” drawls a voice beside him.

Prompto looks around his open locker door, pausing with his camera around his neck and his books in his hand. Prince Noctis has one hand in his locker and the other on his tie, fingers adjusting the already loose-fitting knot. He has a severe case of bedhead that’s even worse that Prompto’s hair on a good day, but he’s wearing a hopeful and perpetually tired expression.

A full minute must have passed before Prompto remembers that Noctis has spoken to him.

“Oh, uh, yeah,” he says, and he feels so _very_ intelligent. “Annoying.”

Noctis looks a little put out. Prompto _really_ wants to climb into his locker and disappear _forever_.

“Right,” Prince Noctis says.

He closes his locker and walks away. Prompto watches him leave. He waits until the Prince has turned the corner and is gone, and Prompto buries his head in his locker and groans.

* * *

Prompto imagines himself as a ninja.

In reality, Prompto is the garula charging into the china shop. He wishes he could be one with the shadows that aid his avatar in King’s Knight, wishes he was light-footed and agile and stealthy. Prompto has received so many warnings from teachers, the letters home fill a drawer in his house. They’re unread and forgotten, gathering dust, and Prompto continues his bad habits.

Feet up on the empty chair beside him, his thumbs dance across the screen as he slays the growing-ever-stronger bosses in King’s Knight. The daemons start to prowl in the quiet moments, draining his potions and his patience, and he hunches over and curses under his breath when they kill him. _Again_.

Across the classroom, next to the window, the Crown Prince of Lucis sleeps with his head pillowed on his arms. Prompto doesn’t think that Noctis gets letters home from teachers complaining about his behaviour in class.

_Who would they even address that to_? Prompto wonders. _Noctis’ father, or to King Regis? Could they be executed for complaining about him_? _Maybe that’s why they don’t say anything_.

Prompto continues to consider this train of thought come lunch, when he’s slouched at the base of one of the many trees outside the building. The blossoms are in full bloom over his head, soft pink petals drifting leisurely to the cool grass under his hands, perching on his knees and slipping through his hair.

His camera lies abandoned in his lap as he turns his face towards the sky, peering through the branches overhead, through the mosaic of brown and green and pink. He closes his eyes, inhales deeply, and feels calm.

“Hi, Prom.”

Prompto startles, dislodging his camera with an embarrassing yelp. He squints upwards, to the form silhouetted against the bright sun. He makes out auburn hair and a sweet smile, a brooch pinned to the lapel of her blazer – a flower of some kind, the name is on the tip of his tongue…

_Only my friends call me Prom,_ he thinks, but he replies, because he doesn’t really _have_ any friends, “Uh, hey.”

Viola moves elegantly, sitting across from him on the damp grass. Discomfort pricks at Prompto like a scarring wound; people like Viola rarely approach people like Prompto.

“Can I see some of your pictures?” she asks. Her voice is innocent but saccharine, wonderful at first taste and sickly after too much.

Prompto really doesn’t feel like passing his camera over to her. What if she decides she likes it, takes it from him? It’s the only thing he really treasures, above all else – what’s he supposed to do?

He tries to reassure himself – his camera is old, dented and scratched, and Viola’s parents can no doubt afford to get her something better if she so chooses.

“Sure,” he mumbles, passing the object over hesitantly.

Her hair is a tangle of curls over her shoulder as she flicks through them. She comments on a handful, on the lighting or the subject matter, and Prompto almost thinks she sounds satisfied. She hums and haws, goes back and forth through his photos, and Prompto feels strangely judged.

“Hm, yes,” she says at last. She’s deceivingly disinterested as she hands back the camera. He lunges forward to retrieve it before she can drop it out of her hand.

“I think you’ll do.”

“’Do’?” Prompto repeats sceptically.

“Mm-hm,” Viola replies. She rattles off an address – a suburban area full of clean, white houses and potted plants on the window sills. Prompto has never set foot in the neighbourhood in his life.

“You’ve heard about my party tonight, right?” she asks him next. “Of course you have, everyone is invited.”

Prompto doesn’t mention that ‘everyone’ usually doesn’t include him.

“Yeah,” he says. He runs his thumb over the cracks and scratches in his camera.

“Great,” Viola says. “Your camera will be there, right?”

Prompto short-circuits for a second.

“Uh, I guess?”

“Good.”

Viola grins and rises to her feet. Prompto feels dismissed even before she bounds off without a “goodbye.” He’s reeling, watching her bouncing curls as she strides away and re-joins her giggling gaggle of friends.

“Right,” he mutters. “No problem.”

He knows it doesn’t count as an official invite to a party. He’s smart enough to read through the lines and see through Viola’s cheery façade; he’s just the _cameraman_. He tries not to feel disappointed, especially as he watches Viola and her troupe nervously approach Noctis. Prompto takes comfort in seeing how casual the Prince appears compared to the fidgety herd that surrounds him.

The conversation is over in seconds and Noctis walks away. He path has him passing Prompto where he sits under the tree. Prompto doesn’t know what he expects; another attempt at conversation? A blasé pass by? A smile?

He ducks his head and looks through the photos on his camera instead, not sure how he’d react if the Prince did _any_ of those things.

He doesn’t look up until he’s sure Noctis is out of sight.

* * *

Prompto ducks out of the party early, finding a hiding spot in the back yard beside a swimming pool that glows blue. His camera is near filled to capacity with photos he wishes he didn’t have to take; drunken selfies by hands that swiped his camera, groups of drunk girls wearing stupid smiles and their cheeks rosy. A broad-shouldered footballer puking into an expensive, mahogany vase while one of his friends cheered loudly and promptly followed suit.

Dim lighting has ruined most of the photos, Prompto discovers, perched on the edge of the pool with his shoes off and his bare feet dangling in the warm water. There’s dark silhouettes of faces, outlines of everyday objects, washed out and wild looks on people when he’s used the flash; Prompto finds he prefers the still photos he’s taken tonight – the scattered beer bottles littering the floor, the upturned red plastic cups along the table.

_Good thing I’m not getting paid for this_ , he muses to himself, _because no one way am I proving I’m_ good _at this_.

Prompto is also _massively_ underdressed. He’d spent an hour upturning the contents of his drawers and rummaging through his wardrobe, settling on a white t-shirt and black jeans that he’d looked alright in. He’d meandered up to the door, wearing a smile, and had joined a party full of girls in floaty skirts and skimpy dresses, full of guys in tight jeans and tighter V-necks.

Feeling out of place, he’d hefted his camera and got to work, relieved to find _he_ was going to be mostly ignored. The people around him saw the camera and forgot his name.

Prompto spent two hours tip-toing around spilt drinks and dancing around drunken stumbles. After being called, “hey, you!” one time too many, he’s retreated to the quiet outdoors, where he bites his lip and hates 95% of the pictures he’s taken tonight.

There’s a smash from indoors, a shrieking shout, and Prompto _really_ wants to go home now. He’s been surrounded by people his own age, surrounded by opportunities to get to know them and maybe have them _want_ him there, and instead none of them have wanted to know his name. Instead, he’s as alone as he’s always been – lonelier now than he would be if he’d just stayed home.

Prompto sets his camera down, listens to the muffled laughter and muted music from the party, and sighs.

“Hey.”

Prompto shouts in surprise and startles hard enough to splash himself with water. Prince Noctis, looking bashful and apologetic, is slouched on a lounge chair a few feet up from him, legs crossed at the ankles and wearing a baseball cap.

“ _Jeez_ ,” Prompto breathes out in an embarrassingly high wheeze. “Make a sound or something next time.”

Noctis fidgets, and says, “Sorry.”

A beat of silence. Prompto’s never been sure about the proper etiquette around royalty; he’d briefly looked into it years ago but had quickly discovered he’d likely never need it.

“It’s Prompto, right?” Noctis asks. “We met a few years ago?”

Prompto’s heart plummets to his stomach. A few years ago, he’d been obese and shier than he is now, full of optimism and bolstered by false confidence granted to him in a letter from a girl he’d never met. Prompto had tripped and landed at Noctis’ feet before either of them could really say anything and he remembers vividly the feeling of incompetence that swept through him, the realisation that he’d likely never be important enough to befriend the Crown Prince of Lucis.

He lost weight, worked hard, pretended the feeling would go away in time.

It didn’t.

“Don’t think so,” he replies with a shrug. He hopes his shaking voice isn’t betraying the lie. “I’d remember something like _that_.”

Noctis is watching him with wary, narrowed eyes.

He says, “Yeah,” and looks across the pool.

Prompto’s gut twists into anxious knots, his mind unhelpfully blank of anything to say.

_How do you even small talk with royalty_? He wonders frantically. _So, how’s the view from on top of the world? Great? Too cloudy? Too close to the stars?_

“So,” he starts, hoping that, _maybe_ , the words might come on their own. Nothing does.

“So,” Noctis repeats. He doesn’t say anything else either.

“Yeah,” Prompto tries again. He exhales loudly, kicking his heels against the back of the pool. When he looks up again, Noctis’ lips are twitching.

“Wow,” he comments. “That thing takes pictures?”

Prompto gathers his camera defensively against his chest, indignant.

“Don’t insult perfection,” he tells Noctis, cradling his camera lovingly, scratches and dents and all.

“’Perfection’ isn’t the word I’d use,” replies the Prince. He leans forward on the lounge chair, surveying Prompto with eyes as blue as the pool water. “How old _is_ that thing?”

“Uh.” Prompto is quiet for a moment, thinking. “Ten years young, give or take.”

“And it still _works_? I’m impressed.”

Prompto grins. “Well, yeah,” he says, rolling his eyes, “I _look_ after it, of course it still works. Not all of us can afford to replace the things that break, you know.”

“Yeah, you’re right,” replies Noctis casually. “Guess being the Crown Prince has its perks.”

The easy conversation they’d somehow, incredibly, managed to start grinds to a halt. Prompto returns to wondering if there’s some etiquette or protocol he should be using when speaking to royalty – but Noctis hasn’t pointed anything out. In fact, the Prince looks _pleased_ that Prompto isn’t grovelling at his feet and referring to him as ‘highness’ all the time.

_It is ‘highness,’_ _right_? He thinks then, because no one’s ever really taught him this stuff.

“Can I, uh.” Prompto clears his throat. “Can I take your picture?”

Noctis is silent, and Prompto wonders if he’s overstepped and ruined their tentative acquaintance.

He hurriedly continues, “Unless there’s, like, some law or something that says I _can’t_ , which is totally cool if there is, no problem at all.”

If a sinkhole could open directly under him and swallow him up _right now_ , that would be _grand_.

And then, with a shrug, Noctis dryly says, “Sure. I’m practically a supermodel anyway.”

Noctis is poised and subdued as Prompto snaps his picture and thanks him. He’s bathed in the blue glow of the pool lights, casting him in shadow and making him appear ghostly. He’s quiet when Prompto turns his attention away, snapping pictures of the yard; he captures the glow of the lights around the garden, tangled in the branches of the tree and twinkling, the streetlights creeping over the fence behind them. The wall ripples and sparkles overhead, the closest thing Prompto can see to stars.

Lingering, lonely sadness creeps forward at the thought, and Prompto wonders if he’ll ever in his lifetime see the stars without the wall inhibiting the view.

He looks back at Noctis, sees the Prince staring up as well, to the wall and the sky and the stars far beyond. He looks as lonely as Prompto feels; two lonely souls sitting together and staring at the sky.

Prompto wants to speak but he doesn’t know what to say.

Noctis’ phone is sitting on the chair next to him – the screen lights up with an incoming call. He doesn’t answer.

“I gotta get going,” he says, rising to leave. “Nice meeting you, Prompto.”

“Y-Yeah. Nice... meeting you, too.” Prompto pauses, then adds, hoping he’s not mucking it up entirely, “Your, uh, Your Highness.”

Prompto’s not sure if he’s imagining the crestfallen expression that crosses Noctis’ face as he turns away. He tells himself he must be – there’s no way he can’t be. He waits for five minutes, surrounded by the night and the sounds of Insomnia at night; sirens wailing distantly through the air, car horns blaring, the music from behind him still muted but so _loud_. Then he rises as well, sliding wet feet into his boots and slinging his camera strap around his neck.

He braves the sweaty crowd indoors only to sneak through them to leave. He doesn’t see the hostess as he goes – hasn’t seen her except in passing; she’d been rosy-cheeked and giggly and close to passing out on a sofa – but he does snap some interesting pictures of a boy he remembers as Castus. He’s vomiting in a lovely vase, full body wretches that Prompto cringes at. Castus soothes his burning throat with swallows of beer, coughs, and swiftly returns to puking his guts out.

Prompto is passed by two men as he leaves, his hands tucked into his pockets and his head ducked. They’re smartly dressed and look like they’re on a mission, the larger, more muscular of the two trailing behind the other and looked amusedly at his surroundings. Prompto realises why; there are people passed out and throwing up _every_ where.

He wrinkles his nose up and keeps walking.

“Noct picked a helluva party,” muses Muscles.

“Yes,” says the other; he’s wearing glasses and looks familiar to Prompto, though he can’t place his face. “I hope he thinks it was worth it.”

Prompto hops the gate at the end of the path, inhales the cool night air, and walks slowly, dejectedly home.

* * *

By now, Prompto is used to returning to a cold and empty house, to a half-empty fridge and a cupboard full of cup noodles. He sits on the counter and he waits for the kettle to boil, resting his head against the cupboard behind him and closing his eyes. The silence is unbearable after the noise of the party and the city.

“Should be used to this by now,” he mutters, feeling more alone than ever. “Me, myself, _and_ I.”

He’s sitting alone in a house with only the kitchen light on, pouring boiling water into his unfulfilling, staple supper. Prompto can’t remember the last time he shared a meal with someone else.

His phone kwehs with a notification after he takes a bite. The sound follows again, and again, once more when he reaches for it to see what’s so damn important. The food in his mouth turns to ash. He drops the cup noodle in his hand, hears it distantly clatter to the ground and spill its contents along the floor.

_Noctis Lucis Caelum is dead_.

Prompto’s hands are shaking as he scans through the news apps, waiting for the hoax, for the call-outs posts about the prank article. He doesn’t find it, he finds only more and more reports of the same thing, pictures of the white-painted house with the blue door and the potted plants on the window sill. The party is over, in the pictures, the garden clear of bodies but littered with plastic cups and glass bottles. Kingsglaive and Crownsguard circle the premises, stern of face and questioning lingering, drunk high school students.

_Crown Prince of Insomnia found dead_.

Prompto thinks of Noctis by the pool, lonely and quiet. He thinks of the shy, unsure smile, the dry wit and the stilted conversation that started to flow and change. Noctis had left Prompto by the pool and Prompto had lingered there soaking his feet and looking at the stars he can’t _see_ when he could have… could have _what_?

Prompto is crying before he realises it, revelling in his failure, revelling in what-ifs and should-have, could-haves. He walks on autopilot to his room, leaving the kitchen light on and bypassing the gory mess of noodles and vegetables oozing slowly outwards on the floor. He can hardly breathe, his throat closing up and his chest aching – it’s like someone has stabbed him, plunged a knife in his heart and _twisted_.

_Crown Prince found dead at house-party._

There’s a letter on Prompto’s nightstand, hidden under books and comics. It’s white and silver, the stationary more elegant that anything Prompto could ever, will ever, afford, the edges in-turned and smudged with his mucky fingerprints. The letter within is worn and well-read, and now a testament to Prompto’s failure to do what he should have years ago.

… _remain ever at his side_ …

He’d rescued a small dog and named her Tiny, and she’d put her small paw in his hand and slept curled up to him while she healed. He’d loved her when he had no right to, and her owner had asked him for a favour, asked him to _try_.

Prompto is clutching a pillow in his arms, sobbing in earnest into the soft cushion. He falls asleep cuddling the cushion like it’s Pryna, sobbing into the sheets like they’re her fur, and wishing he’d tried harder to befriend Noctis when he had the chance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmu on [tumblr!](https://chesswatchesclouds.tumblr.com) (◕‿◕✿)


	2. the truth is stranger than all my dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _is this tomorrow when today was yesterday?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the response to the first chapter has absolutely thrilled me, thank you all so much for your kind words! 
> 
> the chapter title was taken from '[meet me in the woods](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5axbaGBVto)' by lord huron.

He wakes up exhausted, and to the sound of his chocobo alarm blaring through a dull, empty house.

Prompto lays still through the noise, face down and drooling, and he groggily, confusedly, lifts his head and reaches for his phone. Orange light casts it glow across the ceiling and fading walls of his bedroom while a gentle breeze shifts his curtains in and out. Outside, the Wall ripples with light, and Prompto hesitates to rise from his cocoon of blankets.

He stares at the cracked screen of his phone for a few seconds, listening to the jingle with tired confusion. It shouldn’t be going off this early, he thinks, shouldn’t be going off _at all_ , but there it is; the same catchy tune that wakes him for school every weekday and torments him with cheeriness.

The cheer reminds him that the city’s grief will be potent and suffocating, like the flowery perfumes old women wear that clings to their clothes and to the air as they pass him in the street. Prompto wants to grieve in quiet, wants to think ruefully on all he did wrong, all he didn’t _do_. He wants to re-read words written to him years ago and torture himself with his ineptitude and cowardice.

Instead, his alarm continues to perplex him, singing jollily in his shaking hand.

Prompto doesn’t feel like going for a jog but he rises to his feet anyway, kicking away his warm nest of blankets to cross the room and gather his things.

He’s passing the kitchen when he recalls the gory mess of noodles and vegetables streaked across the floor, the tumbled and up-turned cup he’d abandoned upon hearing the horrible late-night news. Better to try and clean it now, he thinks, before it can settle any more than it already has, but turning into the kitchen he finds it spotless – wipe your finger along a surface and finding _nothing_ kind of spotless.

“Huh?”

Prompto stares at the floor and finds it sparkling clean – well, maybe not _sparkling_ , he is a teenager, after all, nothing he cleans will ever be _that_ clean. He tries to remember his parents’ work schedule, if the news would have brought them back early, but he’s almost 85% sure they told him not to expect them for another month at least.

So where did the mess go?

Carmin is waiting when Prompto opens the door. Her hair is twisted in a braid and dangling over her shoulder and she’s picking distractedly at the faded yellow paint of their car. She grins when she sees him at the door, straightens in greeting as he closes it behind him and dazedly staggers down the path to her.

He feels like he’s in a dream, some strange déjà vu that’s following his every step; he startles at a crash from inside his neighbour’s house, and stares open-mouthed at the open door when he hears the cursed exclamation. Unda emerges with a familiar, busted ornament in her hands and Prompto listens as if apart from his body as the couple have their spat.

 _This is… so weird_ , he thinks, as Unda greets, “Morning, Prom.”

“Uh,” he starts. “Uh, yeah. Good morning.”

His eyes flit to the statue in Unda’s hands, the bushy tail and the delicate nose.

“Do you.” His words somehow sound ridiculous even before he’s said them. “Do you have two of those?”

“No,” says Carmin, the bridge of her nose pinched between her fingers. “It’s one of a kind, actually.”

Her words are laced with venom directed at Unda.

“Oh,” Prompto says. “Well, didn’t you break that one already? Yesterday?”

“ _What_?” Carmin demands, whirling on Unda, as the other woman asks, “Are you alright, Prom?”

Prompto blinks. He wonders if he should go back to bed and try to wake up again, if he’s still dreaming. This has all happened already, hasn’t it? Did he dream all of it?

“I’m, I’m fine,” he tries, but his voice is wobbly and so is the step he takes to leave. “I’ll just, I’ll jog it off.”

“If you’re sure,” says Unda, frowning. She brightens with a smile. “You could always play it up and play hooky for the day,” she offers naughtily. “Come to Duscae with us – we’ll drop you off at that chocobo post you’ve always wanted to visit!”

“Unda, don’t be a bad influence,” Carmin reprimands softly, but she’s grinning, eyebrows raised beckoningly.

The offer is so tempting, but Prompto is caught on two words: _play hooky_. He has to go back to school?! This really isn’t a dream, it’s a _nightmare_ ; this day was bad enough when he was dreaming it, now he has to do it _all over again_?

Prompto leaves his neighbours after ten more minutes of small talk. Carmin takes the pieces of the broken statue from Unda’s hand, holding them wistfully, sadly, and ever-so-gently. Prompto’s heart hurts at the sight.

His feet pound the pavement and Prompto loses himself in the rhythm, in the steady routine he’s developed since the first day he chose to run. He rounds the corner, collides with a harried looking Kingsglaive, and shakily watches the man hurry away.

He says, “Be more careful, kid,” thrown over his shoulder with a pointed look, and he continues on his way.

Prompto swallows.

 _For a dream_ , he thinks, rubbing the back of his neck and heading for home, _it’s_ really _accurate. Am I clairvoyant now_?

He showers when he gets home, rubbing sweet vanilla shampoo into his hair – it’s his mother’s, for all she’s ever at home to use it, and Prompto uses it liberally, styling his hair into all sorts of crazy, awful hairdos. The scent lingers on his skin when he emerges from the shower, roughly drying his hair with the same towel he used yesterday (or was it in his dream?). He munches on an apple on his way out the door – the same one, bright red and bruised – and plays King’s Knight with his free hand, only half paying attention to where he’s walking.

His dream had seemed so real, so _authentic_ , that he almost believes that he should be level 60 when he examines his avatar, that the bosses he’d defeated should _still_ be defeated, but instead he begins the gruelling process of regaining that lost progress.

“So weird,” he mutters thoughtfully, brows pinched. “So _real_ , too.”

His brow pinch tighter when the game crashes, again, and he loses his progress, _again_.

He stops walking, murmured complaints on his tongue, and a car screeches to a halt feet from him, startling him into attention. It’s too real, too familiar, the exasperated glower on the bespectacled face behind the wheel of the glossy black car. The driver is glaring at him like he’s been dealing with idiot teenagers stepping out in front of his car all morning.

“Oops,” Prompto mutters, scurrying meekly out of the way. He shakily watches the car glide smoothly away, the purr of the engine quieter than Carmin and Unda’s sputtering mess of a vehicle – quieter than any car Prompto’s ever heard in his life.

Everything is happening exactly like Prompto’s dream, like he’s been given a walkthrough of his day, a tutorial of sorts, and _this_ is the real deal. He inputs his locker combination in a daze, rummaging for his camera and hoping the Six aren’t standing around above him, pointing and laughing. If they are, he’s not surprised, because he’s pretty sure that’s what he’d been doing if he was in on the joke, too.

His schoolmates scream and laugh and joke around him, loud and growing louder – those same voices had haunted him yesterday – er, _today_? Does it count as yesterday or tomorrow if it was a dream, even _if_ the dream felt real?

 _This whole déjà vu thing is confusing_ , Prompto laments, banging his head on the metal door and sighing. _Is this tomorrow when today was yesterday_?

He rubs his temples against an oncoming headache.

“Annoying, huh?”

The tired drawl makes Prompto freeze, makes his hands still against his skin and his eyes go wide. They start to shake as he slowly, _slowly_ , peers around the open locker door. His bag is heavy on his shoulder, the strap digging into his skin.

Prince Noctis looks exactly like Prompto remembers from this moment, a perfect mirror-image of his appearance in Prompto’s dream. He has one hand on his loose tie and the other in his locker; he looks pale and tired and hopeful, but _alive_.

Prompto makes a high, squeaking sound like he’s being strangled.

He _flees_.

* * *

If _this_ is the start of the game, then Prompto _must_ have failed the tutorial.

He sits against a wall behind the school, shuddering in the shade from the chill and the surprise.

“What the hell, what the _hell_ ,” he whispers over and over, just shy of rocking back and forth. No one even _plays_ the tutorial, they just start the game and go along pressing buttons and hoping for the best!

He slouches further down, wishing like he has so many times before that the ground will open up and swallow him whole, drag him to hell and let him burn in Ifrit’s flames. They’re probably hot enough that it wouldn’t hurt too much, right? Or it would be over in _seconds_ , at least…

He has to get to class, has to sit across from Prince Noctis and watch him snooze with his head on his arms like Prompto hadn’t dreamed of his _death_ last night. It’s all so screwed up – of all the dreams Prom has to have, it’s of _this_. Is it an omen? Should he be paying more attention to this than he is?

“Just a dream,” he murmurs, forehead on his knees as he takes slow, deep breaths. “He doesn’t… he doesn’t _need_ me.”

Prince Noctis is bound to have the _best_ security in the city; heir to the throne, beloved by everyone, why wouldn’t they take every precaution regardless?

 _Every precaution didn’t stop him dying last night_.

But that was just a dream, silly and thoughtless. Prompto doesn’t know _why_ he dreamt that but people dream weird, messed up things all the time, don’t they? Why is this any different? He probably just went to sleep thinking too hard about that letter on his nightstand.

“I need to get rid of it,” he tells himself resolutely, getting to his feet and slowly reaching for his bag. “ _Especially_ if it just wants to give me crazy dreams.”

He slouches in the back of the classroom, his thoughts a stormy whirlwind of worries, and he steadfastly ignores the Crown Prince napping happily away. He _must_ have security that Prompto doesn’t even _know_ about, so why worry at all?

 _Just a dream_.

Still, what a nice dream it had been. Talking by the pool with Noctis beside soft blue lights while sirens wailed in the city, water rippling and warm around his feet. Noctis, the lonely prince with the dry humour and tired smile, hopefully sitting on a lounge chair a few feet away. An easy understanding had fell between them, a new acquaintanceship that had been like breathing when they’d gotten past the awkward beginning stages.

Prompto dares to hope that their dream interactions may have led to friendship.

 _A great dream_ , he thinks forlornly. _Only a dream_.

He goes through the day on auto-pilot, more familiar than he should be with every interaction; the courtyard, like in his dream, is bustling with clique activity as he finds a tree and sits at its base, blossoms fluttering around him like pastel pink feathers. He snaps pictures but hardly sees them, and startles with Viola noisily approaches him, disturbing his small snippet of peace.

Viola, speaking in sugary tones, asks to see Prompto’s pictures. She calls him ‘Prom’ and ignores the frown that turns his lips down. He hands his camera over without a word or sound.

He stays silent through her musing, through her invitation, and he cradles his camera close when she walks away.

It’s not the invite that sets Prompto’s heart racing – the chance to mingle with his fellow classmates has little effect when he knows he’s _just_ the cameraman, just like his dream – but the thought that this party, if his dream continues to play out like reality, this party is where Prince Noctis will die.

The invite suddenly seems far less appealing, the party even less so.

 _But he’s the Crown Prince_ , Prompto thinks, as the boy himself strides into the courtyard and passes Viola’s clique. They titter nervously around the aloof Prince, a herd of chicks pecking at the feet of the raven.

 _He has the best security the city has to offer_.

Something niggles at the back of Prompto’s mind at the thought, dark and foreboding.

 _What could I do anyway_?

Prince Noctis walks past him without further incident.

* * *

The shutter clicks and Prompto turns at slurred shouts, dazed and unenthusiastic. He fills up the memory card with dark images of drunken schoolmates and faces too bright with the wrong use of the flash. He lets his camera be snatched by intoxicated, grabby hands looking to take sloppy, slanted selfies, and he deletes the images as sneakily as possible.

Prompto watches a footballer vomit nosily into an expensive vase; behind him, his friend cheers and hollers and promptly follow suit, upheaving the contents of his stomach all over his friend’s head.

He cringes.

Prom loses track of time as he moves slyly around the party, taking action shots of beer pong and Ring of Fire; he hugs the walls and takes sneaky shots he won’t be forgiven for, shots he could easily use for blackmail but knows he won’t, and shots that parents would be horrified to see their children doing.

Prompto emerges from the party and into the back yard with a breath of relief, closing the sliding door gently behind him and inhaling deeply. His camera hangs around his neck as he tugs his hastily thrown on hoody closer to his body, fighting the chill even as he slides out of his boots and slips his feet in the warm water.

Bathed in the soft blue glow Prompto remembers too clearly from his dream, he chances a glance at the lounge chair.

Part of him expects what he sees but he still yelps in surprise.

Prince Noctis twists the loose hem of his shirt in his hands and lounges casually on his chair, face shadowed by a cap. He doesn’t say anything.

 _Guess that’s what happens with you, uh, make an indescribable noise at the Prince of Lucis_ , Prompto thinks. _He avoids talking in case it happens again_.

This leaves the awkward silence firmly in Prompto’s hands, the decision to tentatively reach out with a peace offering entirely up to him.

He twists his camera strap in his hands, clenching and unclenching his fingers.

“Uh, hey,” he starts cautiously.

Noctis looks at him, waiting – maybe he expects Prompto to start screaming this time. Prompto won’t admit that he’s _very_ close to it. He bites his lip under the Prince’s scrutiny as his brief bolster of confidence starts to diminish. He tries to remember his dream, where the pieces had fallen so perfectly in place and Prompto hadn’t been addressing the Prince of Lucis. He’s addressed Noctis, hiding from a party and slouched in a chair to avoid being noticed.

He takes a breath.

“Sorry, uh, sorry about this morning,” he mumbles. His knuckles are white on his camera strap. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

Noctis’ look turns blank. Prompto thinks he’s about to be ignored.

Then, Noctis says, “I wasn’t scared.”

Prompto blinks. Noctis looks earnest but he’s full of self-assured confidence as he surveys the garden like it’s the whole city of Insomnia.

 _Look,_ Prompto thinks ramblingly, staring across the leaf-strewn garden and the pearly white furniture. _Everything the light touches is your kingdom_.

“Sure,” Prompto says, lips twisting into a smirk he’s too hesitant to show to Noctis’ face.

Noctis looks at him from under the baseball cap, affronted.

“I _wasn’t_ ,” insists the Prince. “If anyone was scared, it was _you_. What even was that noise?”

“I’ll have you know,” Prompto flounders, frantically pulling a false fact out of his ass so he doesn’t sound like an idiot, “that some animals take that as a ‘hello.’”

Noctis narrows his eyes. Prompto retains his poker face – _barely_.

“They do not.”

“They _do_.”

“Which ones?”

Prompto swallows. He suddenly feels like an idiot.

“…I dunno, like birds or something.”

Noctis looks victorious and satisfied.

“You’re totally lying,” he says.

Prompto’s cheeks flush and he lamely rubs the back of his neck. Noctis is smiling though, slouched on the lounge chair like it’s the most extravagant throne, with one knee drawn up to his chest. Prompto chuckles quietly, kicking his heels against the marble tiles under the water.

“Okay, so birds don’t make that noise,” he admits.

“You should have said ‘kweh,’” Noctis tells him. “You kinda look like a chocobo anyway. Especially with your hair like that.”

“What about _your_ hair?” Prompto demands. He’s elated; this is almost _exactly_ like his dream – is there a chance that his clairvoyance is leading to a _real_ friendship, an end to his chronic loneliness?

Noctis raises his hands defensively to his hair.

“What about it?” he orders, so seriously that Prompto almost wonders if he’s overstepped.

It doesn’t stop him even though it should.

“You look like you just rolled out of bed, dude,” he says around a laugh.

Noctis blinks.

“I _did_ ,” he says. His serious expression morphs into a cheeky grin.

Prompto starts laughing, full belly chuckles that he clutches his stomach for. Noctis is still smiling, comfortable and happy, and Prompto wants to preserve that expression forever.

 _I made the Crown Prince smile_ , he thinks. _Me_!

“It’s Prompto, right?” Noctis asks. “We met a few years ago?”

Prompto freezes, full of the same unease he’d dreamed of; he doesn’t want to admit this, not ever. His true meeting with the prince had been embarrassing and soul-destroying, and he fishes for the same response he’d used.

“Uh, don’t think so,” he replies. He shrugs, voice shaky and uneasy. “I’d remember something like _that_.”

Noctis, after a moment’s pause, says, “Yeah,” just like Prompto remembers and he looks across the pool again.

Prompto looks at the stars. He fiddles with his camera strap. He wonders if it’s still inappropriate to ask Noctis about the view from the Citadel.

Two minutes later, Noctis playfully insults Prompto’s camera.

Prompto doesn’t realise until after that events are unfolding exactly like they did in his dream. Prompto takes a quick picture of the Crown Prince of Lucis, hiding away from a party of drunk, hand-wandering teenagers, but his comfortable smile wanes when Noctis treats him like a less annoying paparazzi.

The paparazzi had swarmed this house like insects in Prompto’s dream, eager for the money-shot: the bloodied, cold body of the Prince of Lucis.

Prompto _really_ doesn’t want to be compared to them.

Noctis phone lights up with an incoming call a few minutes later. Prompto watches him ignore it without a word, pocketing the device with a sigh.

He starts to leave.

“I gotta get going,” he tells Prompto. Prompto’s not sure if he’s imagining the resigned disappointment in the Prince’s voice.

“Nice meeting you, Prompto.”

“Y-yeah,” Prompto replies quietly.

He waits until the Prince is at the door, until his fingers curl around the handle, and then, with an edge of desperation, he calls, “Prince Noctis?”

“Yeah?”

The door is half-open, pounding, mainstream music oozing out, but Noctis’ attention is solely on Prompto. Prompto hasn’t had anyone pay this much attention to him in a long time.

“B-be careful?”

Prompto’s shoulders slump. He sounds utterly _ridiculous_.

“Some, some of those guys can be pretty shady, y’know?”

His hurried explanation only makes him sound pathetic.

“Yeah, I know,” Noctis says. He’s frowning at Prompto. “You okay?”

Prompto nods. It was just a dream, after all, it’s silly to get worked up.

 _He’s the Prince of freaking Lucis_ , he tells himself. _He doesn’t need me_.

“Okay then,” Noctis replies. He looks mildly bewildered but concerned; Prompto thinks he sees the Prince look back at him through the class when he closes the door and re-joins the party – one last, thoughtful look as Prompto turns his attention back to the water.

“Just a dream,” he tells the water. “Just a dream.”

Prompto doesn’t move though, sitting on the pool’s edge and wringing his hands together, staring at the stars and the rippling Wall high above. He removes his camera from around his neck and lays it next to his thigh, swishing his feet through the water. His brows are drawn tightly together as he looks skyward, as he _prays_ quietly, and words spins through his mind: _remain ever at his side_.

That’s not something Prompto can do, not right now, not _ever_ – he’d be seen as a creep, as more of a weirdo than he already is, and to the Prince of Lucis, no less. The Crownsguard would probably execute him on the spot.

 _Can they_ do _that?_ Prompto wonders worriedly. _Can Noctis have them do that_?

The door behind him slides open, interrupting Prompto’s important internal pondering.

“Hey, kid.”

Prompto looks over his shoulder and sees _muscles_. The man is gargantuan, all strength and scars, with a wicked awesome tattoo across his chest and shoulders. Prompto’s mouth drops open as he stares; the man is practically a _god_ , so big and strong Prompto believes he could wrestle a catoblepas and come off no worse for wear.

Behind him, standing prim and proper and completely out of place amongst drunk, partying hard teenagers, stands a familiar face. Bespectacled and looking down his nose, Prom remembers walking past these two as he left the party in his dream – he remembers feeling like they were somehow familiar but not knowing _how_.

“Uh, yeah?”

This is entirely new, nothing at all like his dream.

“You seen a dorky looking kid around?” Muscles asks. He lifts a hand to his shoulder. “Yay-high, probably napping somewhere?”

A long-suffering sigh from his companion. A familiar, longing ache settles in Prompto’s chest.

“Gladio,” Glasses complains in a low voice. “Some tact, if you will.”

Gladio blinks at him. “That was tactful.”

Prompto swallows.

“He went back to the party,” he informs them. He glances quickly at his phone. “About ten minutes ago?”

Glasses thanks him curtly and turns to leave. Gladio lingers for a second and nods at Prompto, eyes roving over the tiny blonde perched by the pool and watching them go curiously, wistfully.

“Thanks, kid,” he says.

The door closes behind him with a firm, resounding thud.

“You’re welcome,” Prompto tells the empty space. No one hears him but the sirens wailing in the city.

Prompto’s feet squelch in his boots as he walks home, alone.

* * *

Prompto sits on a counter top and reads the news. Steam rises from an untouched cup noodle sitting beside his knee. He has lost his already small appetite.

 _Crown Prince of Insomnia found dead_.

He sets his phone screen-down with a great deal of care.

Then Prompto screams.

* * *

When he wakes, he’s in bed and in an empty house, with his alarm singing happily away and a senseless feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, i hang out over on [tumblr](https://chesswatchesclouds.tumblr.com) if you want to hmu! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧


	3. make a worse situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompto changes everything and, simultaneously, nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is taken from daughters, '[numbers](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-fD3PIRSO8)'
> 
> sorry for the wait - i changed my mind about this chapter halfway through writing it, deleted it, rewrote it, deleted it all again and now, i'm semi-satisfied. fair warning, things are only going to get better (read: _worse_ ) from here. >:) 
> 
> enjoy! and hmu on tumblr if you fancy a chat (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

_Not a dream_ , Prompto thinks as soon as he wakes. _It happened._

 _Again_.

His alarm sings cheerily on his nightstand, the curtains ooze in and out, and Prompto can’t breathe. There’s a weight on his chest, resting over tangled sheets and crushing him, and the air won’t come – Prom heaves and heaves, wheezing with the effort, sobbing with the strain, and he cries with abandon. There’s no one to hear him anyway and, even if they did, no one would remember it tomorrow, no one but him.

 _No one but me_.

Prompto doesn’t go jogging this morning, though it might help him to. He doesn’t witness first-hand the heartbreak of a broken, gifted statue held between two shaking hands. Prompto doesn’t round a corner too quickly and collide with a handsome Kingsglaive, isn’t told to _watch it, kid_ , while he watches the stranger stride away with barely a glance backwards.

“Why is this happening to _me_?” he asks himself, cocooned in bedsheets and staring forlornly at the wall. Why Prompto, when an established member of the Crownsguard, or _Kingsglaive_ , could handle a situation like this, a crazy, unreal, _horrible_ situation like _this_ , with more care and success? Why not the King, of the King’s Shield, or the _Marshal_ – why not _anyone_ else?

What can Prompto do that they can’t?

 _Why is this happening to_ me _?_

With a resigned sigh, Prompto rises. He forgoes showering, unwilling to reek of vanilla cupcakes for the third day in a row, and dresses with slow, sluggish movements. He’s exhausted, and feels disgusting, and his appetite was lost two days ago – _yesterday_ , technically, but there is no yesterday when yesterday is _today_ and _tomorrow_ is today and so is the day after.

Prompto makes it to school just in time to meet the suave, glossy black car, in time to glance at the driver and- _wait_. Glasses. Glower. Exasperation. _Glasses behind the wheel of the car_. He’s alone, waiting impatiently for Prom to get a move on and cross in front of him, but Prompto’s eyes latch onto the car and try to peer inside – is, is Gladio with him? Noctis? Has Glasses just dropped Noctis off?

The car purrs as it passes him when he’s safely on the sidewalk, still following the vehicle with his eyes. Prompto will never, ever, be in a car that fancy, unless he steals one – but even then, he won’t get far when he can’t afford driving lessons and doesn’t know the first thing about _driving_.

“One day,” Prompto muses, trudging to his locker dispassionately and ruminating on many near-misses between the Prince’s car and Prompto’s person, “he’s gonna run me over, and then where’ll I be?”

He pauses with his hand on his locker.

 _Back in bed, probably_.

He sighs. Beside him, Prince Noctis fiddles with a loosely-fitted tie and yawns, looking as messily put-together as he has for the last two days. Conversation titter around them in the same low buzz that continues to haunt Prom to make him miss the things he doesn’t have.

Prompto opens his locker and Noctis closes his.

“Annoying,” Prom says, before the Prince opens his mouth. “Yeah, it is.”

Noctis, bewildered, stares at him. Prom peers around his locker and tries to grin, to be reassuring, but this is new territory for him now, different from the last two attempts, different from shaky agreement and terrified shrieking. “Annoying,” is all Prom knows, here, the beginning of the end.

“Right,” says Noctis, a touch hesitantly.

Prompto thinks about easy conversation at the poolside and it bolsters his confidence.

“Bet it makes you wish you were home-schooled,” he jokes lightly, fishing in his locker for some unseen book because he doesn’t want to look away from Noctis for too long.

The Prince blinks.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, finally. “Sometimes.”

Prompto hums. “Dunno is _I_ could be home-schooled,” he says. “Not sure I’d have the grades I do now.”

“What’s that?” asks Noctis. “Just above terrible?”

Prompto balks. Once he moves past the crazy thought that Noctis _knows_ about his grades, he gathers himself enough to respond.

“My grades are _not_ terrible!” he cries. “Can’t be worse than yours, Mr-naps-through-every-class.”

A hint of a smile on the Crown Prince’s face as he leans one shoulder against his closed locker, his attention on Prompto.

“What can I say?” he asks, “I take in information better when I’m sleeping.”

“Like a superpower,” Prom replies. “Tremble in fear before the Sleeping Prince! He’ll learn _all_ your secrets while you sleep _but_ … is probably too lazy to use them against you when he wakes.”

“Hey!”

Prompto grins. Noctis hasn’t walked away in a huff, at least, so that’s one step in the right direction. And the right direction is… _what_ , exactly? Prompto realises he doesn’t actually know what he’s doing – yesterday, today, tomorrow, whatever day it is, he thought he was dreaming, so he let the day play out exactly like it shouldn’t have if Prom had been smart enough to know things weren’t _right_ , that it wasn’t a dream, it never had been. Now that he knows what’s happening, or has an idea, at least, what does he do? No one else knows Noctis is going to die tonight and who can Prompto tell that won’t look at him like he’s completely crazy?

How do you even get in touch with the Citadel? How would that conversation even go?

 _Yeah, hi, hello, Prince Noctis is going to die tonight so if you guys can stop that from happening, that would be great_!

 _If they don’t arrest me for being completely crazy_ , Prompto thinks, half-listening to Noctis say goodbye and wander off to class, _that might actually work_.

He lounges at the back of class and flips through window upon window of web-searches, none of which actually give him a number direct to the Citadel.

 _Well, it’s probably not something they just…_ give _out to people_ , he thinks, _but they_ should _._

Noctis is napping at the other side of the room, head cushioned on his arms. Prompto watches the teacher shoot him vaguely unimpressed looks but bite down any reprimand. Prom wonders if Noctis is at all resentful to his teachers for it, for the way they brush him off and leave him to it. His grades do not slip – probably because of some unknown tutor hidden away in the Citadel, ensuring it so – so they see no need to hound him to pay attention.

They aren’t brave enough to do so, regardless.

Prompto brings up King’s Knight on his phone, laments his lost progress briefly (he’s getting used to it, by now, when he really shouldn’t be) and only half listens to his teacher droning on about the history of Lucis. He’s the last to leave the room when the bell tolls, fumbling with his things like a toddler with toys, and the boss is _still_ kicking his ass when his bag slips off his shoulder and upturns all over the carpet.

Noctis has already left when he looks up.

* * *

Prompto doesn’t just get invited to Viola’s party.

Prompto gets _uninvited_ from Viola’s party.

It’s a hissed disagreement that begins and ends in the space of five minutes, likely less. Viola, with her hair as beautifully braided and resting on her shoulder, holds her hand out for Prom’s camera and cocks her head when Prompto, politely, tells her to fuck off.

(He doesn’t say _that_ , exactly, though he’d very much _like_ to.)

Prompto drops his head in his hands and curls up at the base of the tree. Noctis will have an invite, Noctis will _always_ have an invite, every damn day, every day, _forever_ , Prom can’t seem to change that.

Viola strides away with her chin in the air and her entourage rising to query her upset. Glares are shot at Prompto, curled lips mouthing insult, and Prom burrows his face in his knees and wishes to start over.

 _Heh_ , he thinks after, steadfastly refusing to cry, _I’ll probably get my wish_.

“You okay?”

Prompto starts, blearily squinting at the figure looming over him: Noctis. The Prince stands slouched with his hands in his pockets while he frowns at Prompto. Prom gapes, remembers a few seconds later that it’s appropriate to reply to people when they’ve addressed you, Prince of Lucis or not, and scrambles to answer.

“Uh, y-yeah,” he says. “Fine…”

Noctis stares.

“Sure,” he says, unconvinced.

He crosses from the path to the grass and joins Prompto on the ground, lounging against the tree with an elbow propped up on his knee. He turns his face towards the sun, shaded by the leaves and blossoms of the tree. He looks peaceful, far more peaceful than Prompto, who feels like he might start screaming at any second.

“Are you.” Prompto pauses, swallows, and starts again, “Are you going tonight?”

“I got invited,” Noctis says, “and I got nothing better to do.”

Prompto’s heart sinks into the depths of the earth under them.

“Oh,” he says.

“What about you?”

Prompto hopes he’s not imagining the blasé hope buried under Noctis’ words.

“Uh, no,” Prom replies, and it hurts to say so. “No.”

“What?” Noctis levels a questioning stare at him. “Why?”

“I, ah. I got stuff to do tonight.”

 _Believable_ , Prompto thinks.

“Important stuff,” he tries again.

“Right,” says Noctis dryly.

Prompto isn’t surprised that Noctis sees through his pitiful excuse – _he_ sees through it, and he’s the idiot who thought it would work. Prom tries to shrug nonchalantly and play it off like it doesn’t bother him – but it _does_. Noctis is going to that party and Noctis is going to _die_. How can he be nonchalant about that?

“Guess I’m just too cool for that sorta thing,” he tells Noctis. He grins, but it doesn’t feel right.

Prom doesn’t think there’s any way to convince Noctis to ditch the party. Noctis, the lonely, sleepy Prince of Lucis, is just as lonely as Prompto is, just as keen to try and establish a lasting friendship with _some_ one. Prompto would like that someone to be him, but he has his doubts about where he lands in all of this. Prompto is just _Prompto_ , the camera guy slouched in the back of the class with a cracked phone that crashes when he plays King’s Knight for too long. Prompto is _Prompto_ , the underfed kid who still feels overweight at heart, abandoned and alone.

Prompto is _Prompto_ , and he doesn’t doubt that tomorrow will come and Noctis will forget all about him.

 _He doesn’t need me_ , Prom thinks, turning his face towards the blossoms floating gently around them, _but the best security in the Citadel won’t save his life. I will_.

Noctis won’t remember him for it tomorrow, and that’s okay.

Well, providing that tomorrow is _tomorrow_.

“Y’know,” Noctis starts slowly, unsurely, clenching and unclenching his hand where it rests against his raised knee. “I could talk to Viola. If you really want to go to the party.”

Prompto blinks.

“Uh, why. Why would you do that?”

“Uh, well. I mean.” Noctis swallows. Prompto’s never seen the Prince look so flummoxed. “Never mind.”

Prompto wants to punch himself.

In the face.

With a garula tusk.

 _Hard_.

Noctis has shut down, his expression going blank as he rises. Prompto thinks he catches a brief flash of hurt and resignation when he turns away, stepping onto the path; the Prince seems as tired as he always has been, though now a weight far heavier is carrying him down.

Prompto just stops himself from wishing, again, that he could start over.

“Right,” says Noctis. “See ya around, Prompto.”

Prompto watches Noctis walk away. He realises, watching the Prince trudge away with pastel pink blossoms caught in his dark hair, that Noctis didn’t check his name this time.

* * *

Prompto is kicked out of the party three times before he realises it was never going to be as easy as walking through the front damn door. Or climbing in through the open window Castus is vomiting out of. Or sneaking in with the troupe of kids that sit in front of Prom in chem and speak of nothing but getting high.

He lies for a moment, sprawled on the clean, white path where he’s been left after his latest attempt. His shirt is stretched at the neck where a tight fist wrenched him away from the wall he was trying very hard to become one with and dragged him out. Prom rises, takes a deep breath, and scampers around the back of the house, scuffing his boots when he trips over his feet and faceplants the bushes lining the path.

He clambers inelegantly over the fence when he reaches it, using his feeble upper bodyweight and wildly kicking legs to drag himself up and over. He lets out a high-pitched yelp as he tumbles over the wooden barrier and onto a patch of vibrant, violet hydrangeas. Crushed under his thin form, Prompto crawls away sheepishly, a dusting of pink across his cheeks as he thanks the Astrals no one is around to-

“Hey,” greets Noctis.

Prompto shrieks, throws himself into the hydrangeas, and covers his head with his hands. A second later, he peers upwards, through his fingers and squinting in the bright, white lights dangling from the trees, to find the Prince looking down at him with a brow raised and his head tilted.

“Uh,” Prompto replies. “Hey.”

“So,” starts Noctis. He crouches so Prompto isn’t craning his neck to look at him anymore. “This is your ‘important stuff’ to do tonight?”

Prompto, lost, says, “Huh?”

Noctis’ laugh is more like a scoff, but amusement glitters behind his eyes as he holds out a hand for Prompto. The situation is familiar to Prom, an unwanted reminder of Prom as an obese child, of Noctis struggling to help him up. His cheeks burn.

He puts his hand in Noctis’.

“Uh, ha, yeah,” he says, picking hydrangea petals out of his hair. “Guess I could make it after all!”

A moment of quiet. Noctis studies him for a moment.

Finally, he tells Prompto, “You’re so weird,” with some small amount of fondness that Prom doesn’t expect.

“I think you mean ‘awesome,’” Prom corrects, coupled with finger guns and a cheesy grin.

Prom leads the way to the pool’s edge, toeing off his boots before he sits, setting his feet in the warm, rippling water. Noctis is cast in blue as he passes him by, slumping into his lounge chair like it’s the most important of thrones.

 _Who knows_ , Prom thinks, _maybe he’ll replace it with a lounge chair, when he’s King_.

“So,” it’s Prompto’s turn to start. “The Crown Prince, hiding from his peers.”

Noctis doesn’t glower but the look he gives Prom is not necessarily warm, either.

“I’m not hiding,” he refutes.

“ _Sure_ you’re not.”

“Why d’you even care? You said you couldn’t come.”

Prompto doesn’t quite grin in triumph, but he definitely has to look away to celebrate his victory. Noctis almost sounds annoyed by Prom’s dodging excuse from this afternoon, bothered by it enough to hang it over Prompto’s head when he can’t win their small, unimportant spat.

“Well,” says Prom, before he can think too much and say something much, _much_ safer, “I didn’t want you to miss me too much.”

Noctis looks at him oddly, like he’s a particularly difficult puzzle with too many pieces missing. Prompto turns his face to the water, unsure, and drags his foot back and forth through the water in unseen patterns. He has fallen into easy conversation with the Prince for two days now, and the night has ended the same both times; Prompto goes home, alone, and the Prince is murdered at the party.

But Prompto knows there’s an opportunity – the man with Glasses and his muscled companion, Gladio, both of them proper and official-looking, seeking out Noctis.

 _Stall the Prince_ , Prom thinks. _Can I do that_?

“Hey,” Noctis starts. He comes closer, pauses in his step as Prompto glances up, surprised, and continues, “Where’s your camera? Thought that thing was glued to your hand.”

Prompto glances quickly at the crushed hydrangeas under the fence. Maybe it’s a good thing he didn’t take it this time.

(It’s not like he’s seeing anything he hasn’t _before_. And the chances of the pictures being there in the morning for his perusal are slim.)

“Might be a good thing I didn’t,” he says.

“Yeah,” says Noctis. He’s followed Prom’s gaze, considering. A beat later, and with a self-suffering sigh, he’s lowering himself to sit next to Prom at the pool’s edge, shucking off expensive-looking sneakers with little care and rolling up the ends of his jeans. Twin plops and splashes, Noctis’ hair turned blue in the light, and Prom hopes that a small deviation in routine will have the biggest effect.

He sighs, a small smile creeping across his lips.

“You ever been outside the Wall?” Prompto asks.

Noctis is quiet for a moment. Then, “Yeah.” Another breath. “You?”

Prompto shakes his head. “I want to, though. Can’t see the stars too well from here.”

“Yeah,” says the Prince. “The lights get in the way, huh?”

“Right,” Prompto says. “Must look better from the Citadel though?”

Noctis considers. “I guess,” he finally agrees.

“Come _on_ ,” Prom whines. “Gimme more than _that_!”

“They’re stars,” says Noctis shrugging. “They look the same wherever.”

 _They do not_ , Prom thinks petulantly. He can barely see them from the ground, disguised as they are behind a magical wall and dozens of thousands of bright street lights. From the Citadel, from high above the city and all its problems, Noctis can probably see _every_ thing. Something that seems so incredible to Prompto, to extraordinary, makes the Prince barely bat an eyelid.

Prompto changes direction.

“Stars aren’t the most important thing outside of the Wall, anyway,” he says.

“Oh?”

“Yeah,” says Prompto. “ _Chocobos_.”

“Figures,” says the Prince. “I guess the mothership is calling you home.”

Prompto accepts the jibe, half-offended and half-relieved, with a hand over his heart.

“You wound me,” he complains. “However will I recover from such an insult to my hair?”

He sighs dramatically and moves his hand from his heart to forehead for extra flare.

Noctis’ lips twitch.

“My plan all along,” he says. Then, serious, “You’ve really never seen chocobos before?”

“Not in real _life_ ,” Prompto says. “Never left the city before, remember? Have _you_ ever seen a chocobo?”

“In photos, yeah.”

And Prompto, stupidly and with little thought, says, “One day, we’re gonna see chocobos. Real, _live_ chocobos.”

“We?”

One look at Noctis’ face tells all when Prompto hesitates, his mind catching up with his mouth: this isn’t the Prince of Lucis anymore, but a shy, lonelier boy than Prompto, looking at him with such searing hope it breaks his heart. Noct is waiting for Prompto to start backtracking, to realise he might be out of line, to trundle back over the line he’s hastily, inappropriately crossed.

Prompto doesn’t cross back over.

“Yeah, man,” he says, nudging Noct with his elbow. “’We.’ You an’ me.”

Noctis, hopefully, downtrodden, _lonely_ Prince of Lucis, smiles.

“Yeah,” he says, “and maybe a dozen Crownsguard and Kingsglaive.”

“Aw, man,” Prom says, grinning, “all that protection for little old _me_? You really shouldn’t.”

Noctis doesn’t reply; his phone draws his eye, lighting up with an incoming call. He takes a quick look, a flitting of his eyes, and ignores it, pointedly turning away. Prompto knows what happens next; Noct gets up, disappears into the house, and _dies_. Prom has to, has to _stall_ him a little longer, keep him here just a little longer.

“Can’t wait,” Noctis says softly. His fingers curl around his phone before he plunges it into his pocket. “It’s going to be the adventure of a lifetime.”

He retracts his feet from the water. Prompto briefly envisions grasping his shirt and tossing him into the pool.

“First, the chocobos,” he says instead, awed and wistful, “then, _the world_.”

Noct slides one foot into his sneaker, then the other. “Where would we go? After the chocobos.”

“Far away,” Prompto says. “There’s supposed to be a, an active volcano somewhere, right? We could climb that, see if it’s true.”

“You know it is,” Noct tells him. “There’s photographic evidence. Mount… Mount Ravatogh.”

“Could be photoshopped,” Prom replies immediately.

“ _All_ of them?”

“Yeah.”

“All the photos are photoshopped.”

“ _Yeah_.”

Noctis softly shakes his head. “What else?”

“Aw, man, come _on_ ,” Prom whines. “Don’t make me do all the work here!”

Noctis smiles, small and sweet.

“We could go to Galdin Quay,” he suggests, after a pause. “Or Cape Caem.”

“Oooh, the ocean,” Prompto says dreamily. “For swimming?”

“For fishing.”

“ _Fishing_.”

“It’s fun.”

Prompto, dubious at this statement, waits for Noct to continue.

“You could take your camera,” he adds.

“Dude,” Prompto says. “ _Of course_. An adventure like this has to be documented.”

Noctis opens his mouth, more on his tongue, and the door slides open. Thumping music oozes into the yard, infiltrating their small, quiet dream space. Over his shoulder, Prompto watches Gladio step through, eyes finding Noct immediately beside the pool. Behind him, adjusting his glasses and gazing imperiously at everything that dares to move or make noise, the man who’s almost killed Prompto for three days now.

Noctis sighs.

“Highness,” says Glasses, prim and proper as he eases the door closed again. Prompto thinks the man sounds disappointed.

“Specs,” throws back Noctis. There’s a bite to his voice now, the remnants of an argument Prom hasn’t been privy to. Prompto watches Gladio nudge the man in the side and nod, not so surreptitiously, at him, perched by the poolside with petals in his hair and mud on his knees.

Prompto waves at them. “Hey.”

Gladio’s impressive eyebrows rise. His shoulders bounce with a huffed laugh.

“I think this is quite enough excitement for one night,” says Glasses curtly, giving Prompto nothing but a quick, cursory glance.

“Excitement,” Noctis repeats. “Sure.”

“What?” puts in Gladio. He strides forward and claps Noct on the shoulder. “Was the ball not what you expected, Cinderella?”

 _Wait_ , Prom thinks, _does that make me Prince Charming_?

Noct shakes Gladio’s hand off and mutters, “Let’s just go,” with his head ducked and turned away from Prom.

They start to walk away. Prom’s heartbeat pounds in his ears – victory is close at hand, with it relief comes hand in hand. Will this fix it? Noctis is going to _live_ , right? Gladio and Glasses wouldn’t let him _die_? Prompto stays where he is, frozen, watching Gladio, a hulking behemoth of a bodyguard that a catoblepas probably couldn’t budge, whisper something to Noct. The Prince tries to shove him, punches him in the shoulder, and Prompto, suddenly desperate, twists and nearly falls into the pool.

“Hey,” he calls. Three pairs of eyes glance back at him, curious and assessing and amused. “Don’t. Don’t forget about the chocobos?”

Noctis smiles. Prompto’s heart twists.

“’Course not,” he says. Then, somewhat pleased, he adds, “Night, Prom.”

The door closes quietly behind them. Glasses, Specs, what _ever_ , gives him one last, scrutinising look.

“Night, Noct.”

* * *

There’s no notifications forthcoming on Prompto’s phone, nothing to alarm him, nothing to wrench screams from his throat that wake his other neighbours.

Prompto eats his cup noodles, whistles as he climbs into bed, and doesn’t sleep until the sun starts to rise.

* * *

His alarm wakes him.


	4. burn it down, burn it down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompto sleeps. prompto wakes. prompto ruins everything and nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yikes. i'm so sorry for the wait! life got _crazy_. here's the next part, and you should know that i'm inspired to write the next chapters like i haven't been before! big, big thanks yous to everyone who left comments on the previous chapter!  <3 <3
> 
> song title is from '[burn it down](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XIRj_Iq3cw)' by daughter.

Prompto doesn’t move.

The jingle continues cheerily for a minute, before Prom reaches for his phone and lobs the device across the room with a raw scream.

 _He didn’t die. He **didn’t**_ _die_!

Yet somehow, keeping Noct alive wasn’t enough to end his nightmare.

Prom grabs the corner of his duvet and rolls over, wrapping himself in a tight cocoon of warmth and sadness. He bursts into tears whenever he thinks about Noct – _Noct_ , he called him Noct last night, tonight, tomorrow, what does it _matter_? – and they are tears of frustration at his situation, that he’s _trying_ and finding himself moving backwards. Prom curls up tighter, and squeezes his eyes shut as if seeing nothing at all will solve all his problems.

The sun goes down and far above the rippling Wall, the stars comes out. Come midnight, Noct dies again and the city mourns for its lost Prince.

Prompto quietly cries himself to sleep.

Prompto wakes.

Prompto doesn’t leave his home for three days.

He tries again on the fourth day and loses track after ten. He sits at the pool’s edge at Viola’s party and takes pictures of the sky and the garden and the drunken party goers. He _tries_ to talk to Noct, tries to bond with him; he succeeds, mostly, in small doses, though it hurts to wake in the morning and start over. Worse still are the days where Prom decides to try shunning him, though it sends piercing, horrible pain through him and changes nothing. Noct nods miserably, on those days, resigned and miserable, and leave Prom in ruins every time.

Noct dies. Noct doesn’t die. Whatever the outcome, Prom wakes alone and tired, and five hundred steps behind the start line.

A few days after Prompto stops counting, he spends another day in bed. He orders food from every takeout place in the city, including the ones with one-star reviews that have given him food poisoning whenever he’s ordered from them. He packs the boxes on the coffee and dining table, on empty chairs, along the floor in front of the furniture. He eats and eats, and eats some more when he thinks he’s too full to fit anything else in.

“To hell with exercise,” he declares with forced cheer, while his phone pings with dozens of messages from his parents.

The bills are gone when he wakes, as are the empty boxes.

Prom starts over.

* * *

Prompto has truly lost count of the days when he realises no one will remember what he did tomorrow.

 _No one will remember_. _No one but me_.

He sits on the edge of his bed with his bare feet on the carpet and his duvet around his shoulders as a thick shawl.

“Huh,” he says.

Prompto wears black. He gels his hair and lines his eyes with thick, black kohl. He finds the coolest, heaviest-looking boots in his wardrobe – bought with birthday cash and much after-purchase regret but no intentions to return – and laces them up. He squares his shoulders under a red and grey shirt and a leather kutte and sticks his hands in the pockets of his faded black jeans.

He looks like he’s mourning, he notes, and reckons if anyone’s ready for a funeral it’s him.

“ _Whoa_ , Prom.” Carmin was mid-rant when he stepped outside, but the sound of the slamming door has halted the words on her lips. “Shouldn’t you be wearing your uniform?”

“Shouldn’t you have moved that stupid statue _yesterday_?”

Unda is holding the two pieces in her hands, gaping at him. Carmin’s features have gone soft where Unda’s have pinched. They’re looking at him like he’s a stranger wearing Prompto’s skin, and Prom feels the same way.

There is no offer to play hooky today.

They won’t remember his apology tomorrow if he voices it, so he storms past without another word. He’s nearing the end of his tether, whether this is good or bad, and he’s tired of playing this role, tired of performing the same actions repeatedly in this awful video game.

When Specs nearly runs him over, Prompto stands in the middle of the road and _dares_ him to. Ifrit’s fury is in his gaze and so much fatigue it has turned him reckless, but Specs looks at him with a pinched expression and boundless patience, while his brows draw together in clear disapproval.

Prompto steps off the road and stalks into the building, the purr of the engine the soundtrack to his steps.

Noct is waiting at his locker, one hand loosening his tie and the other rummaging through his books. Crowds part for Prom and whispers follow him; he feels even more like a stranger, out of place and lost, and the more everyone treats him like one, the more he realises this is giving him no joy.

 _It’s not about joy_ , he thinks.

He’s willing to try anything he has to.

Prom inputs his locker combination and wrenches the stiff door open.

“Yeah,” he snaps, without looking at the Prince. “It _is_ annoying.”

Noct slowly closes his locker. He’s baffled and flustered, and Prom doesn’t care because he’s lost count of how many times he’s had to hear those words.

“Uh, right,” Noct mutters.

Prompto slams his locker shut and hears conversations around him frazzle and quiet. The silence haunts; he tries to convince himself this is what he wants as he watches Noct turn away, but the lie sits heavy in his chest. Acting this way hurts just as much as ignoring him, and twists a shard deep into his heart.

Noct searches for something else in his locker and quietly closes the door.

“I like your boots,” he says. “Your whole look today is very… rebellious.”

“Figured ‘why not?’” Prom replies. “If I have to keep dealing with this shit every day, why shouldn’t I get to enjoy myself every now and again? Not like you’ll remember tomorrow, anyway.”

“Believe me, I don’t think there’s any way I’ll be able to forget this.”

“You will,” Prom rages on, “because this is _my_ Groundhog Day, not yours.”

This is Prom’s nightmare – Noct is just the centrepiece.

Silence reigns. Noct wrestles with words while Prompto’s heart races and his hands shake.

“Right,” the Prince finally says. It’s a dismissal and, Prom doesn’t know what he expected, exactly, but it still freaking _hurts_.

His response, with a huff and downwards twist of his lips, is spectacularly stupid. Prompto charges forward with his fists clenched and punches Prince Noctis in the jaw.

A hush falls over the hallway. Noct stumbles back and tumbles into lockers. He forces one shut with a rattled crash and a startled shout. His fingers gingerly cup his jaw, prodding gently at the tender skin. Prom’s knuckles ache, but there’s an odd satisfaction sitting in his chest, masking the hurt he has been feeling constantly. He feels like he _needed_ that, needed to cast the blame onto someone when there’s no answers to be had.

Noct stares at him. Then his expression closes off and his eyes narrow. He dives forward and returns the favour.

Their fight, somehow, is evenly matched and horrifying to the watching students. They aren’t much of an audience for a few seconds, wearing shocked stares and hiding behind clasped hands, but it’s not long before the encouraging shouts start up, and the crowd closes in around them. Prompto winds up on the floor, fists clenched in Noct’s shirt and dragging him down too, but his punches are wild and unrestrained where Noct’s are succinct and trained.

Teachers break them up, with strong hands dragging them to their feet and apart. Prom rages and shouts at Noct, lunging again and barely held back. There’s blood everywhere; Prom’s lip has split and his knuckles are bruised and chafed. Noct bleeds from a cut on his cheekbone and bears his teeth in a bloody snarl.

“It’s your fault!” Prom yells. His voice sounds so far away, like his ears are stuffed with cotton while his vision swims.

“It’s _your fault_!”

Prompto’s parents don’t come when called, so he sits in his chair with an ice pack on his knuckles and a bloodied cloth to his lip while Ignis and Gladio sit on either side of Noct. Ignis’ displeasure is largely aimed at Prom, but Gladio is wearing an amused expression, and nudges Noct with his elbow every so often.

Noct isn’t saying a word, and he isn’t looking at Prom.

The Dean suspends Prompto for the rest of the term. He tells Prompto this with a cold, disappointed look.

Noct is suspended for the rest of the week, all said with apologies and assurances that it won’t be on his record. Ignis shakes the Dean’s hand as they leave, while Prom stews and huffs, sinking lower in his chair with his arms tucked tight across his chest.

The Prince doesn’t look smug when they leave and Prom is kept back for further disciplinary measures from the Dean. Instead, Noct is staring at Prompto with dark brows drawn tight together. His advisor ushers him out the door without another look at the troublemaker who started it all.

Prom pointedly looks away and tells himself he doesn’t care.

* * *

Prom’s tiny first aid kit holds a couple of antiseptic wipes and enough bandages to wrap one of his hands. There’s a plaster covered in chocobos, too, that’s just big enough to cover the cut above his eyebrow. He looks ridiculous and exhausted, his eyeliner smudged and his knuckles bleeding and wobbling bottom lip split. He’s received no invite to the party tonight – mostly due to being escorted from the premises by school security, and Noct is _celebrity_ at school and Prompto _assaulted_ the Crown Prince and all that – but he decides to go anyway.

He’s the first to the pool’s edge this time, with hydrangea petals in his hair from another tumble over the fence. His boots lie on their sides next to them while he sloshes his feet gently through the water. He considers ignoring Noct if he arrives (that’s never worked before though) or maybe fighting him again (he’s sore, though, and it hurt too much the first time anyway). He’ll just be so much of an undesirable mess that Noct is forced to call Ignis and Gladio early and—

 _I don’t care_ , Prom thinks. _I don’t care_.

He doesn’t feel real. His anger is justified but not who he is, and his grip on it is as fleeting as the water on his skin; the second he pulls away from it, it will fall away and leave only residue, slick and transparent. His clothes are his and his hair is his, but he wants to wear them when he’s _himself_ , not when he’s angry and forgotten.

 _Never enough anyway_. Prom cleans the blood from his knuckles. _Doesn’t matter_.

Fatigue trails after Prom now, and he’s too tired to be angry anymore. It’s left him nothing but exhausted and lonelier than usual. The water is warm and soothing and Prompto is cold and lonely, and he can’t imagine that is going to change for a long time.

The water looks inviting. The noise will be muted under the surface, calm.

The door slides open while he considers, heralding Noct’s arrival with loud, thumping music. The door is closed with an unusual amount of force that reminds Prompto he has never been here for the Prince’s arrival before. He keeps swishing his feet through the water while the footsteps falter, and Prom picks a violet hydrangea off the ground by his thigh and drops it into the water. It floats away, swaying in and out with the waves Prom’s legs are creating, but eventually drifting into the centre of the pool.

“I’m not gonna hit you again,” he grumbles. “It’s not worth it.”

Noct slowly draws closer and perches on his usual chair.

“Suspended, huh?” he asks softly. “That sucks.”

Prom shrugs. He draws one of his legs out of the water and rests his foot on the edge, elbow on his knee while he clears his throat of the persistent lump lodged there. It’s silly to be upset when it won’t matter tomorrow.

“Doesn’t seem fair,” Noct starts. “We both should have been suspended to the end of term.”

Prom scoffs, “Sure.” He pauses. “That would be a better headline though.”

“Better than what?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Noct stares at him, trying to unravel the enigma Prompto has become in a day. Noct doesn’t know that this has been weeks in the making, no one does.

“Still,” he continues, “I hit just as hard as you did. And _I’m_ professionally trained.”

“ _Pfft._ Didn’t feel like it.”

“I was going easy on you!”

Prom has been trying to avoid looking at him. He’s afraid he will burst into tears if he does, but he can’t resist now, looking at Noct with a laugh and a smile that lingers too long.

They take each other in like two wary animals, damaged as they are. Prompto’s lip stings as his lips stretch; Noct is better off than Prom but no less injured. His knuckles are bandaged and three butterfly bandages line the cut on his cheekbone. Their bruises are starting to purple.

Prom looks away.

“’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“Me, too.” Noct points at Prom’s face. “I like your band-aid.”

Prom’s laugh is watery and embarrassing. “Thanks.”

Noct hesitates. Finally, he says, “You’re a pretty good fighter, you know?”

“Nah, I’m not.” Prom lowers his leg in the water again; the hydrangea has drifted towards him and now away again, swept away in the wave his foot makes with its plunge.

“I was just angry. And tired.”

“Because of me. Right?” Noct inhales shakily, cautiously. “What did you mean? That it’s my fault.”

“It doesn’t matter,” replies Prom. Noct inches closer, until he’s sitting beside Prom with his feet in the water too. His sneakers are abandoned next to Prom’s boots.

“Yeah,” he says, watching the hydrangea floating in the pool. “It does. I’ve done something—let me fix it.”

Noct’s conviction is so genuine that Prom wishes he could believe him. He turns his face to the sky again instead, to the rippling wall and those endless stars far out of reach. He wishes Noct could remember their talks, the dreams of adventures and running away, of chocobos and fishing.

He wishes Noct could remember being Prompto’s friend.

They lapse into silence instead, full of aches and questions and resignations. The water bubbles and ripples, and the hydrangea drifts closer until it bobs between their feet. Noct’s phone, on the edge of the pool at his other side, lights up with incoming texts.

Noct stares at it for a long time. Then, pocketing the device without looking at the screen, he says, “Hey. Let’s bail.”

 _This is new_ , Prom thinks.

“Yeah?” he asks, while Noct draws his feet from the water and shakes them dry. “And go where?”

“I dunno.” He grimaces, but recovers quickly. “It’s a big city. We can find something.”

“It’s late.”

“The city never sleeps.”

Prom nods to Noct’s pocket, but the excuses he can come up with are feeble.

“Isn’t that important?”

“Not really. If we move fast—”

“Say no more.” Prom removes his feet from the water and rises, sliding still wet feet into his boots.

“What about the Observatory?” Noct is already walking towards the face Prompto inelegantly clambered over. “We can’t leave the city so it’s the next best thing.”

“It’ll be closed though, right?”

Noct smiles. “Leave it to me.”

“Gonna use your connections as the Crown Prince?”

“Better.”

 _This will be amazing_. Prom grins, and hurries after Noct. Noct has his hands cupped in front of him, a step for Prom to use. He doesn’t get the chance to.

The door slides open, catching them cleanly in the act of escaping. Like prisoners caught in searchlights, they face the open door, and Prompto feels disappointment far too acutely for how often he has been feeling it lately.

“Noct,” Gladio greets. “Do you beat up every friend you make?”

Ignis stands next to him after closing the door, arms across his chest and a chilly scowl fixed clearly on Prom.

“Hey,” Prom complains, the words tumbling from his mouth even as he feels himself withering under the cold. “I beat _him_ up, actually.”

“I went _easy_ on you,” argues Noct.

“I’m still gonna kick your ass for it tomorrow,” Gladio throws in gruffly. He eyes Prom again. “Nice band-aid, Blondie.”

Prom’s hand jerks towards his eyebrow. “Uh, thanks.”

Ignis’ glare has lessened, somehow, but he is no less annoyed. His analytical eyes scan Prompto and Noct.

“Where were you going?” he asks. “The _party_ is this way.”

“We were gonna make our own,” Noct says. “Hit up the arcade.”

“This late? I think not.”

“Your approval isn’t needed, Ignis.”

“Nevertheless, you do not have it. It’s past your curfew.”

Noct groans. “Why do I even _have_ a curfew?”

“Cinderella had a curfew,” Gladio says. “So do you. The clock’s struck midnight, Princess.”

Prom grins. “Don’t worry. Prince Charming is here to chase you from the ball.”

Noct blinks at him. “I’d say you’re more like my fairy godmother. A _bad influence_.”

“Hey! I gave you glass slippers.”

“And a black eye.”

“Not like you didn’t return the favour!”

Ignis curtly cuts them off with, “Shall we be off?”

Noct is disappointed. He tries to shrug off Gladio’s hand from his shoulder and fails, steered dutifully from the pool and Prom, standing by the fence with his boots crushing the hydrangeas.

“See you tomorrow, Prom,” Noct says, before Ignis closes the door between them.

Prompto swallows. The lump hasn’t dislodged.

“Y-yeah,” he murmurs. “Sure thing, Noct.”

* * *

Prompto climbs the fire escape of a building that overlooks the city, where he can see the Citadel and the bright streak of light rising from its centre. He watches the beginnings of the sunrise and hates the hope that still flutters weakly in his chest. He dozes off on the roof, leaning against the ledge and fighting his tears.

* * *

He wakes in bed, to the sound of his alarm.


End file.
